Abstract: An object management system for storing persistent object oriented objects, includes an object vault, a structural type manager and a digital library. The object vault is connected to the structural type manager and the digital library is connected to the structural type manager. An application program is connected to the object vault. Objects to be stored are represented as a Key Value Dictionary (KVD) in which attributes, or metadata, relating to the objects are stored as key-value pairs. Objects are categorized as having different structural types in which certain attributes for objects having the same structural type are cataloged to facilitate indexing and searching for the objects. The structural type manager maintains a mapping between structural types and a subset of keys for the structural types as well as corresponding database references for cataloging the object attributes.